1. Field of the Invention
The present application relates generally to management of a network address book for telephones and/or the like.
2. General Background Discussion
According to the background art, an Address Book, containing contact information of friends, relatives, buddies, etc., is stored in a user cell phone or other user device (either in, e.g., SIM (subscriber identity module), or in the Device Memory). In this regard, this information is stored in the Address Book by the owner of the device by the following methods:                1. Keying in full information (e.g., Name, Phone No., etc.) using phone keypad;        2. Keying in partial information (e.g., Name only) at the end of a call, associating with the caller ID, if the caller ID is permitted by the operator and the phone is programmed to retain it.        
The Address Book that resides in the device memory is not convenient to move from one device to another. For example, if the user wants to switch to a new model of a cell phone, he has to copy the Address Book from an old device to the new device, either manually or by using a computer and an allied software application that can perform a functionality of retrieving the contact information from a first (e.g., old) device and storing it into a second (e.g., new) device.
The Address Book that resides in the SIM is relatively easy to move from one device to another because the SIM can be removed from one device and inserted into the other device. However, a SIM has limited memory capacity.
Recently, the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) Converged IP Messaging (CPM) has discussed storing each subscriber's Address Book in the network, giving it the name Network stored Address Book (NAB)). A NAB could not only eliminate the problem of shifting the Address Book from one device to another, but could also allow the Address Book to be accessed and be used by a plurality of devices (such as, e.g., a personal computer (PC), Universal Mobile Telecommunications System user equipment (UE), a pocket computer, etc.) possessed by the same user. The user will be able to download the NAB into any of his devices, update the contents, and synchronize the information in both the user's Local Address Book (LAB) (i.e., on the user's device) and the NAB, etc. For reference, user equipment (UE) can involve any device used by an end user to communicate, such as, e.g., a cellular phone, a personal digital assistant, a lap-top computer and/or any other appropriate user equipment.
However, under the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) framework, populating the NAB would still be performed by using the existing methods 1 and 2 as noted above—i.e., any new contact information would be entered by the user himself into the LAB, and then it would be uploaded to update the NAB.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,277,911 to Cheah proposes some new ideas on an information management and distribution system. However, the preferred embodiments differ from Cheah in a variety of aspects. For example: (i) The Cheah information management and distribution system is apparently primarily an Internet application and maybe implemented using a computer readable medium, and a computer system whereas the preferred embodiments of the present invention are preferably for telephone networks (e.g., landlines and cellular networks); (ii) the Cheah system requires the acts of registering a plurality of users, with each of the users providing a contact profile during registration process, whereas the preferred embodiments herein do not necessitate such a requirement, (iii) the Cheah system is apparently for electronically distributing contact information (CI) over a computer network, whereas the preferred embodiments herein are not only for distributing the CI in controlled manner but also for populating and managing the NAB information in a seamless manner, and (iv) some of the aspects pertaining to the CI management, distribution and automatic update of the previously distributed contact information according to some embodiments in this application are more efficient than the background art, because, e.g., in the case of the background art, the management is provided by a 3rd party, whereas the preferred embodiments herein do not require such a 3rd party and the management is done directly by the entities in the operator's network, e.g., involving a new entity called “NAB Manager” and a new Interface called “Sn-ab” over which the UE would be able to communicate with the NAB Manager.
In addition, the preferred embodiments also provide a NAB Manager to communicate with a Subscription Profile Database, e.g. HSS in 3GPP Cellular networks and PCRF (or Policy Charging and Rules Function) as shown in FIG. 6.
Other aspects and advantages of the preferred embodiments of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings which illustrate, by way of example, the principles of the invention according to some of the preferred embodiments.